Getting Started

You should try to safe often. You'll never know what
lies around the corner.

Always try to keep a constant supply of items. Stuff
like POTIONs or Tents and REMEDYs, because most likely your
magic will run dry.

You might not always have the best equipment on and sometimes
the prices can get fairly steep. You should always stay
near a save point or a town and wander around and fight
enemies for gold, that way you won't be too far off from
your resting point incase enemies give you some trouble.

Having trouble against a boss? Having the newest equipment
is not always the best choice. If you are fighting against
Seal(fire) and you so happen to have the FLAME sword then
what good will it do you if you just keep healing him? Also
some bosses might not have weaknesses and you will have
to start gaining some levels before you fight the boss.
Also are your rows properly straightened out? Always place
fighters up front and magic users or people with low defense
in the back, that way you can have more of a balanced approach
when fighting against bosses or enemies.

If you can heal outside of battle, you should use your
magic instead of your items. Items don't come back after
use and you will need gold to buy more items. However magic
can be replenished at save points, inns, or using your Ethers.

When ever you see treasure chests, try to save before
you look in them or keep your party's HP up. Sometimes there
are monsters inside those treasure chests that will take
quite a bit of work to defeat.

Keep consideration of your magic points. Using your most
powerful magic to defeat opponents is not always the best
way to end the battle often you won't have enough to replenish
your party's HP.

Constantly keep your party's HP up. Unless you are a 100%
sure you will be able to mop the floor with your enemies
then you should always keep a close eye on your HP.

Whenever you bring your party member back from a swoon
status always have the next available person heal that party
member because your party member's HP will not regenerate
themselves and the party member only starts out with 15%
of their max HP, so unless you have LIFE2 then I suggest
you should always have the next available person heal the
party member just back from the swoon status so you wouldn't
have to risk that party member suffering a blow that would
put that person back on swoon status.

You can switch weapons during battle. Just go to your
Item command and scroll up and you will see the weapon or
shield in your left and right hands. Hit A on the weapon
you want to replace and go over the weapon in your inventory
and press A. Be sure to make your decision quick otherwise
an opponent can seriously damage your party members while
you were looking for the best weapon, so make sure you have
the most suited weapon before you enter battle.

When your selecting your magic, the Active Time Battle
stops so take your time to decide which magic is best.

Also continously attack your opponent because unlike
previous Final Fantasy games(FF1-3) you will be attacked
even if you are not ready, so make sure you attack quickly.
Incase you still need some time to think you can always
hit the Start button during battle to pause the game.

Keep magic users in the magic and fighters in the front,
that way your healers won't die so quickly. You can also
do this during battle by hitting the control pad left on
the command box, but its only for the battle. To make this
permanent(or until you decide to change it again) go to
your menu screen and hit change. Also you can switch the
position of your characters by using the Form command on
the Menu Screen.

Always check pots or other things that can carry items
besides treasure chests, although most of the things you
find are just Potions, you should pick them up anyways because
hey, they're free!

Not Bosses in this game do not provide expierience points.
So don't expect to earn expierience points by defeating
bosses or expect to gain that extra level because it won't
happen.

If this is your first time playing an RPG game or Final
Fantasy game for that matter then I suggest you go to the
Training Room in the Town of Tule to gather up information
about the basics of the game. Learning the basics of the
game will help you learn some of the more advance and complex
features of the games and also most other RPGs.

Try to keep all weapons you find that normally are not
sold at weapons shops, also armors, they can help you out
in future battles or when your Bow and Arrow users run out
of Bows and they need a new weapon to use in the middle
of battles.

Riding Chocobos is a fun way to move across town to town,
but if your riding Chocobos enemies can't attack you, so
your better off that way right? Wrong. Riding Chocobos mean
that you do not gain any expierience points or GOLD from
the enemies you would have fought. So when your losing battles
or when you do not have enough money for equipment then
you will realize that riding chocobos is not a good idea,
but however if you are low on life and your magic is out
and your cure supplies are gone not to mention TENTs and
REMEDYs then it would be a good idea to make it to the next
town without fighting any random encounters.

If you haven't noticed it, your levels are divided among
your party members. Sometimes it might take a long while
to gain levels, but there is an easy way to gain expierience
quickly. Say you have five party members in your group and
Locke needs to reach level 99. First off you swoon the other
three party members besides Locke. Hopefully Locke is strong
enough to fight on his own, then have Locke fight any random
encounters, its best if he fights opponents like the TUMBLEWEED
or BRACHEOSAUR. Here just have Locke win, at first it might
seem like a struggle, but Locke will gain levels 4 times
faster than before because his party members' expierience
points are given to Locke because his other party members
did not participate in battle.

If you have two parties in low HP and your in a cave
near a save point, then this is a neat trick for you to
do. Have both parties stand on the same save point and use
a TENT. Afterwards both your parties will be fully healed!

When you lose battles, and yes you will lose battles,
make sure you go to your esper system menu and switch espers.
Your summons can be used only once during the battle and
it works the same way as switching weapons in your hand,
just go to magic and hit the cursor up and your esper should
appear.

Spears do twice as much damage than a regular attack
when you attack with the JUMP command. Make sure you always
jump, but be warned that it takes about 2 turns to use the
JUMP command and when you need to finish off an opponent
quick its not always the best thing to use.

Dash can only be used if you have gained a certain amount
of levels for Thief, once you have it you can make your
trip faster and random battles occur less often.

In the World of Ruin, you can bring back your swoon party
member back to life without magic or inns or the use of
items. Go to the Collesseum and have a swoon character fight,
and if they win they will be back at full HP and MP!

NOTE: The following tip is provided by Reyno Gaspar,
a very useful one might I add. "Welp, anyway, if all your
people have wall/reflect/anything that reflects magic, cast
an offensive spell on all four/five people. The spell will
reflect off them and hit the enemy. But, there's something
cool about it. Ya know how spell damage is divided when
you cast a spell on multiple characters? Well, if your fighting
an annoying boss or some lone enemy and cast a spell on
all of your walled up characters, the divisions will actually
ADD up and hurt more that it would usually hurt if you hit
the enemy directly with the spell. If you're fighting an
enemy with 4 people walled up and cast an offensive spell
on all four walled up characters, the enemy will be hit
with the spell FOUR times! Ouch! Also, if the foolish enemy
casts an offensive spell, he'll hit himself! Hah! But, there
are some disadvantages with it. One obvious one is that
you can't use any white spells on yourself. Two, when fighting
a group, this spells will bounce and hit any one of them,
not directing the one spell on one guy. But, this can be
useful. I remember I killed a GrandMummy (FFV 8000) and
a Gargoyle (FFV 5000) with just one Fire 3 on my characters
and with one Fire 3, I won! Hah!"

Finally, last but not least talk to everybody in town,
you never know what you might expect. Talk to them twice
if you have to, maybe something might slip from them